


Burn

by IraBragi



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Luke is a bit of an idiot, On the Run, Rey doesn't need anyone to show her her place in all this, TW: brief mention of slavery and assault, all sex is consensual though, find your own path, how it could have gone differently, she makes her own, the "Your nothing but not to me" scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 11:58:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13434249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IraBragi/pseuds/IraBragi





	1. Chapter 1

Breathe. Just breathe.

Now reach out. What do you see?

Light. Darkness. A balance.

It's so much bigger.”

     It was all so much bigger than her.  Not surprising really.  Almost anything is bigger than a nothing girl from a nothing desert, ten planets past the back end of nowhere.  Ray understood small; small sand that digs its way into your eyes, into your _mind_.  Small portions, whatever food she could barter or scavenge.  Small options - die in the sand or die of hunger in her bunk.  Yes, Ray knew small every day of her life - right up to the day when her world exploded into something bigger than her wildest dreams.

     “I need someone to show me my place in all this.”

     He was an old man with a piece of grass and so much contempt that she didn’t know how he fit it through the doorway.  Contempt for the rebelion, for his sister, for Ray herself.  Years later she would think back and understand him a bit more.  She would wonder if it was malice or simple fear - then decide that one was no better than the other.  Whatever Luke Skywalker - the pilot who brought down the death star, who redeemed Darth Vader and defeated Emperor Palpatine, Jedi Knight and legend throughout the galaxy - thought or feared didn’t much matter in the end.

     “I've seen this raw strength only once before in Ben Solo. It didn't scare me enough then. It does now.”

     People love to tell stories, it just comes natural to our tongues.  We tell and retell them and those stories in turn frame what we see, shape the truth.  Burning love, forbidden and dark; that was the story that was given them.  Ray, the golden Jedi of the rebellion and Kylo Ren, the twisted and fallen heir to Darth Vader.

     If it was being told over too many mugs of something strong there would be crude references to what parts of her anatomy must have convinced him to follow her.  If it was a young woman spinning the love story she secretly wished for herself, then the tale had much more to do with the hidden goodness of his heart and strength of his arms.  If if was told by one of the old rebels who had fought alongside her then the story was a bitter one.  The teller’s voice dripping with the mix of anger and confusion of someone who holds a belief so tightly that any disagreement is incomprehensible.       

     “Let the past die.  Kill it, if you have to.”

     She was a stubborn as they come, but even she knew that there was nothing left for her on that island.  It wasn’t just Kylo’s furious accusation or Luke’s stricken rebuttal.  It wasn’t just the cold pit that called to her or the temple that yielded no answers.  It was his eyes.

     “This is not going to go the way you think!” 

     What did she think?  That no half understood, half mythical power had the right to condemn a boy for the sins he might someday commit.  That for all the talk of balance, all she saw was an old man so afraid of himself that he would rather cut the rope then let anyone else even try to walk it.  ...That there would never be anything as simple as balance coiled behind her ribs.

     Luke had recoiled in horror when she reached for the cold, sucking, void.  Ray had no words to explain that the cold emptiness didn’t scare her because she already knew what it was like to be totally and utterly empty.  No, Ray realized, this was no place for her.  Not here, and not in a rebellion that needed a name, an idea, the ghost of a past that she questioned had ever existed.  It didn’t need _her_ .  And in time it would come to condemn her with the same hatred it had turned on… _him_.  Ben Solo, Kylo Ren… the monster who it would be so much simpler to hate.  

     No, it wasn’t love, and it certainly wasn’t lust that sent her hurdling straight at she man she had tried to kill.  On Jakku she had kept herself alive by believing that her parents were coming back for her, that there was more than the life in front of her.  When salvation bumbled its way into her life she grabbed on with both hands and ran.  It turned out that she was good at running.  Now she was running again.

     “That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.

\----------------------------

     “You’re nothing.  But not to me.”  

     He wasn’t sure what he was offering her, just that it was everything.  There was nothing left for him here, just like there had been nothing left for him in his mother’s house, nothing for him in his uncle's heart… There had once been a place for him on Chewie’s lap, pretending to co-pilot a old bucket of rust beside a man who might have loved him, but never could fit in his mother’s world; but that too was long gone.  

     So he reached out and offered her everything that he could give; every half formed dream and hope he had ever had, all wrapped in the only thing he had left of himself to give - the burning furry had protected him since birth.  

     He reached out and knew that it would never be enough.  He loved her, at least as much as he understood what love could be, but what was love and fury when she had a home to go back to?  People who were good and kind.  People who...     

     “Did you mean it?”  She’s standing across from him; still gripping the lightsaber, sweating from their deadly dance, but her breath perfectly steady.  “When you said to burn it down.  To kill the past.”

     This wasn’t what the vision had shown him.

    “There is no future for us here.”  Her eyes were locked onto his.  Kylo was no stranger to having someone invade his mind.  But this… this was different… she was pinning him with her eyes, showing him a future… it was like no future that he had ever seen before.

     “Let’s hand them the match and let them light themselves on fire.”  He looks at her again.  Tries to peer through the web of fantasy he has woven and see the woman in front of him.  They both hold the lightsaber but suddenly there is no opposition in their grip; only connection.

\---------------------------

     She would scold him for his words later (much, much later.)  “You sounded like _him_.”  

    It was true.  When he told her that she was nothing it had been a lie, and a cruel one at that.  He was good at that, controlling people.  Snoke had dripped honeyed venom but Kylo had too much of his mother in him to play that game.  Cutting words could be as effective as kind ones.

     “Do I sound like him often?”

    She brushes her hair away from her face.  She’s let it grow lately, but it’s usually tied into a bun or braided down her back.  He likes the braid, whenever he finds pretty ribbons; from a begger girl selling them outside a fancy bar in one system, or a bazaar so big you could walk all day and not reach the end in another, he buys them and tucks them under her pillow.  She always rolls her eyes and complains about wasting the coin but she also smiles.  One the good days she braids them into her hair.  

    “No, mostly you just sound like you.”  He would do _so much_ to make sure there are more good days, more good days for both of them.

\------------------------------

    It’s surprisingly hard to surrender an army.  He almost killed Hux but then thinks the better of it and force drags him along to the bridge with them.  People step out of their path, they all think he is insane anyway.  

     “Rebel command ship this the First Order flagship.  We are powering down our weapons and offering an unconditional surrender.  I repeat, this is Supreme Leader Kylo Ren surrendering all First Order personnel and ships to General Organa and the Rebel alliance.”

     The silence stretched out, tighter and tighter, then broke with the suddenness of a thunder head.  Hux is screaming something incoherent and diving for him, blaster out.  For the second time that day Kylo chokes the breath out of the man and considers finishing him off.  Another officer is reaching for the console, meaning to fire no doubt, when Ray spins and lashes out.  The man’s eyes go wide with fear as the tiny woman force pushes him, knocking him off his feet.  Then the first shot pierces their hull.  

\---------------------------

     Fin was alone when he found the beacon bracelet.  He knows that it was hers because the matching piece still hangs from his wrist.  He finds it on his bunk, there is no note, no explanation.  At that point he had given up expecting one.  

     It had all happened so fast.  He and Rose were pinned to the floor on the enemy ship, betrayed by their thief and about to be executed by Captain Phasma when the first shot rocked the ship.  Later he would put together the pieces - the shot was not from the rebels but from one of the other Imperial battleships, attacking their own after Kylo Ren’s sudden surrender.  At the time all he had know was that he didn’t want to die.

     “You’re scum.”  Phasma had spat at him and he hadn't flinched.

     “Rebel scum.”  He was proud of who he was, why couldn't Ray have been too?

     While the two first order ships were busy tearing each other to pieces the third ran, presumably not wanting to chose which of it’s comrades to fire against.  It was not a long fight.  The smaller ship had greater maneuverability but could not outgun the flag ship.  Only those who got to the escape pods survived.

    After that the few troopers in the flagship who hadn’t already laid down their guns quickly did so (Phasma was dead, their generals surrendered, most were all too glad to throw down their blasters.)  No one really understood what had just happened.  Snoke dead?  Kylo Ren surrendered?  The war was over?  It made no sense.

    When he saw Rey she was beside _him_ speaking to Leia.  Finn had run to her and wrapped his arms around her… he should have known then.  She had held him close for a moment then pulled away.

     For one beautiful, shining, moment, the end was in sight.  It was the victory that they had hoped and bled for.  Leia was in her element, giving orders, making plans, doing five things at once and forgetting to eat or sleep.  Poe was her right hand man, the fight between them long forgotten, and the enormity of what just happened slowly sinking in.  This was the beginning of something wonderful, the dawn they had all believed in, the dream he thought that they all shared.

     Then reality came crashing down.  

    Although Kylo Ren had surrendered the whole army, the only ones that honored that surrender were the half destroyed flag ship and survivors from the second ship.  Supreme Commander Snoke was dead but the First Order lived on.

     That was not even the most immediate problem though.  The resistance had been short on men, supplies, and ships before all this.  Now they had half of the First Order’s command staff to hold as prisoners  - most of whom made it very clear that they viewed this surrender as a temporary setback by an insane commander not a permanent state of affairs.  And that wasn't even counting the stormtroopers.

     In all the confusion it was all too easy for two people to slip away in a scout ship.  By the time anyone realized that Ray had stolen the key card to Kylo’s quarters and knocked out the guards posted at his door (it wasn’t quite the cell that Finn thought he should be thrown in but he was still Leia’s son and the main reason that the other prisoners were cooperating at all) they were long gone.  

     About five minutes after that all hell broke loose.


	2. Chapter 2

     The first night on the run Rey dreamed.  Tangled vines and flowing lava, death and life, and chaotic futures all fighting to come true.  For a long time she huddled in her bunk, knees pulled to her chest and trembling, wondering if it had been a force vision or just a projection of her own fears - or if the two were the same thing.

     On Jakku she had often watched as a group of dust hogs ripped each other to shreds over a puddle of water.  She learned to wait quietly until they finished killing each other then take the water for herself.  She learned not to mind a little blood in her water.  When you spend your whole life thirsty you learn that there is nothing you won’t do to survive.  

     The next morning Rey brushed the tears out of her eyes and pulled on a fresh shirt before she made her way to the cockpit to take her turn piloting the ship.

\-------------------------------

     The old Jedi tomes were in her bags.  Kylo knew it for a fact (He’d been snooping.  He wasn’t proud of it but years of paranoia taught you to be careful and he couldn't quite shake the feeling that that this was a trap.  This _had to be a trap_.)  She must have taken them from Luke, his old master certainly would have have given them to her willingly.  The thought brought a twist of grim amusement to his lips.  He put them back and walked towards the cockpit; whatever she planned with them, he would wait until she was ready to bring it up.

     Rey didn’t know when he had gotten the lightsaber before they escaped.  After their fight against the Guard they had come together, both fighting for control of the weapon, then as they came to an agreement he had let go and she had placed it on the floor between them.  It had felt wrong to take it.  

     She hadn't seen it again until the second night on the run when she passed Kylo, asleep his a makeshift bed in the cargo bay.  (He had insisted that she take the bunk.) The outer layer of his robes had fallen to the side and she could see the hilt, tied to his belt.  He must have picked it up.  He must have hidden it when they locked him up and felt that it was important enough to bring now.  But why?  Weren’t they running away from all that?

     They again, why had she taken the Jedi texts to begin with?  Or tucked them in along with a change of clothes and her toothbrush?

     When she stole them from the temple there had been no coherent plan.  She had been angry and scared in equal parts and her hands moved before her mind caught up.  Now they felt heavy.  The weight of everything she had lost was tucked between their pages.

     She knelt beside her bed and pushed them deeper inside her bag.  “They are mine now.”  She whispered fiercely.  “I deserve to know who I am.”  The bag fits neatly underneath her bunk, she only wished that her churning thoughts were equally easy to contain.     

 -------------------------

     It turns out that one of the few skills that they both shared was a love of tinkering with half broken machinery.

     “I wouldn’t have thought that Snoke’s right hand man would know a wrench from a hammer.”  She was teasing him.  He was learning to tell when she did that; her lips quirked to the side and her eyes danced.  When she was really angry her lips pulled back and her tone went flat.  (When she was _really_ angry it felt like being pelted with a thousand razor blades in his skull.  It was impressive and he wasn’t even sure if she was aware that she did it.)

     “I _was_ second mate of the Millennium Falcon.  It took a miracle to keep that rust bucket flying.”  The words sour on his lips halfway through speaking them, far too many memories attached, but he shook his head and forced a smile anyway.  “Besides, even even a school child could see  that if you don’t reroute those circuits you are going to short out the whole board.”  Rey is covered in grease and rust and half wedged under the right engine block.  She spits a good natured curse at him and snaps her fingers to signal that she is ready for the soldering iron he is holding for her.  He thinks that she is beautiful.

\------------------------------

     They fall into a pattern.  

     The ship they stole is traded for another on freezing planet where bugs the size of small rats swarm around your head and try to work their way into your clothes for warmth.  Before they leave the ship Rey makes him strip down to his pants and shirt and still frowns and mutters something about being too tall and too recognizable.  

     Kylo shrugs, “I can just kill them if they recognize me.”  He’s not sure if he’s joking or not.  The look that Rey gives him screams that he had better be.

     The new ship truly is a bucket of rust, he’s fairly certain that wire and icicles are all that’s holding it together.  Rey takes it and looks happy with the trade.  They bounce from port to port looking for parts to fix the ship and supplies for themselves.  Usually there are odd jobs to be had for anyone who is willing to put in some hard labor or fix something that may or may not have been stolen.  Occasionally they move cargo that is most definitely not whatever is printed on the labels.  When you are already wanted by at least five different military and government factions it seemed a bit silly to quibble with legal niceties.

     Right about the time that they get the first ship running on more than fumes and luck Rey decides it’s time to trade it for something different.  This time they walk away with a new death trap (this one had more mold than rust plus an ominous clacking in the navigational system) and a pocket full of gold coins.

     “Best way to earn a living on the run” she explains, “keeps you from getting recognisable and you can make a ship pay for itself in a few cycles if you’re lucky.”

     He had just nodded.  Rey was a few years younger than him, but in so many ways she seemed deckades older.  Jakku was a hard teacher he supposed, and while he had had plenty of things expected of him, he had still been General Organa and Han Solo's son… then he was Snoke’s.  Rey knew how to survive, how to work until her hands bled and then keep going.  He watched her shout down men twice her size and demand a fair trade, then turn on a dime and bite her tongue - or say the right thing to the right person - to stay out of trouble.  She never said much to him when he made a mess of something or fell behind, just offered a hand up (or in the case of him getting into a yelling match with a local head man over the way he was looking at her, a glare that would liquify iron) and kept going - it was up to him if he was going to keep going or not.  And over and over again, he did.

\-------------------------                          

     They picked up news of the war in bits and pieces.  As expected the rebellion didn’t have much luck holding on to their prisoners.  It seemed that most of the storm troopers were willing enough to change sides; stories of Commander (and eventually General) Finn and his ex-stormtrooper squadron began to circulate the galaxy.  Ray had to smile at some of the more, erm, _embellished_ descriptions of the man.

     The officers were a different matter.  Hux and a few men loyal to him escaped less than six weeks after the surrender.  Apparently even the rabid dog had enough followers to grab a handful of ships and start his quest to take Snoke’s place.  He was far from the only one with that idea.

     In the end he really had done it, Kylo thought wryly, he’d killed the First Order.  Except, instead of giving the rebellion the clean victory they wanted the power vacuum simply lead to a handful of new factions, all claiming their right to the throne and jockeying for power.  He and Rey did their best to tread lightly because it seemed that the _only_ thing that all sides agreed on was that they were willing to pay quite a lot to get their hands on the two of them.  Hux in particular seemed very keen on the idea of finding him dead or, preferably, alive and screaming.

     The biggest shock for Kylo though, was how unconcerned most people were about the whole thing.  After so many years living and breathing the war it made no sense to him to walk into a trading outpost and have the only question that people were interested in be, “who do I need to bribe today to get my cargo through?”  Some small towns didn’t even have a clear understanding of who the First Order was let alone why the rebels were fighting them.

     “Hard times, bad business.”  

     That was the sentiment he heard over and over.  Whoever was fighting out there, these people just wished that they would stop it and let them live their lives in peace.  

     In other places Kylo saw the devastation that the First Order had turned a blind eye to - or worse, helped create.  He had to drag Rey away from a slave auction on an mining colony.  He would never forget the tears streaming down her face or the venom she spat at the guards who were laughing at the sight of a small woman who tried to single handedly pull them off the girl they were beating.

     “That could have been me.”  They were back at the ship and they should have taken off already but Rey was sitting in the pilot’s seat staring at nothing, tears long dried on her cheeks.

     “It’s not.  It will never be you.  I’d never let it be.”  The look she gave him told him that it was the wrong thing to say.  She got up and brushed past him, he waited until he could hear her in the gally, then started charting their next course.  He didn’t realize that he was biting his lip until he tasted blood.

\----------------------------

     Between stops, life on a ship turned out to be long stretches of boredom sandwiched between short bursts of extreme panic.  They often didn’t have the fuel to make warp jumps (or their engines were acting up _again_ ) so they learned to make a lot of short hops on cruise and deal with the down time as best they could.  Rey liked to curl up in her bunk and read the old Jedi books.  Although, judging by the infrequency that she was turning the pages, they were either exceptionally dense, or she was spending more time staring at the pages then actually reading.  Kylo had never handled boredom very well to begin with but now, locked in an enclosed space with Rey, it was a hundred times worse.   

     The meditation started out as mostly a self-preservation tatic.  He had done everything that he could think to do on the ship - twice - and they were still days out from their destination (A stormy jungle planet that might have a man who was selling the converter they needed.  Rey thought that they could double the value of their ship if they could just get the database and navigational displays to sync up.)  In any case, he was rapidly running out of things to do that weren’t staring at Rey and thinking about how she chewed her lip when she was concentrating on something.

     Luke had started teaching him to meditate long before their formal lessons began.  Back then he had loved getting to spend time with Uncle Luke.  The man would gather him on his lap and tell him to close his eyes and picture a tree.  They would take turns describing their trees; how their leaves turned to the sun, how they dug their roots into the deep, rich, earth, and how their branches swayed in the wind.  From there there were other “games.”  Feeling for things with their eyes closed, learning to see things in his mind and then to reach out and touch them, even to make them move.  He had been so young that he didn’t really understand what they were doing.  He didn’t understand why Luke was so proud of him and Papa always looked angry when he found them working together.  Kylo shook his head, those were things that he had sworn to leave in the past - where he hoped they would rot away disappear for good.    

     Still, meditation came to him easily enough.  Legs crossed, back straight, let your breathing slow and your mind clear…  The next thing he knew there was a delicious smell coming from the gally and Rey was cooking up the last of the smoked fish that they had gotten two planets ago.

     “Could you you teach me that?”  Kylo looked up from his food with surprise.

     “Are you sure you want me to?”  She rolled her eyes and made a show of looking around the room, “see anyone else here?”  Then something dark passes over her face and she glared down at her own plate, “I want to understand this.”  He hadn't heard her sound so fierce since the battle.  

     “I have this thing inside of me and no amount of ignoring it will make it go away.  Or are you too scared to teach me too?”  Her eyes flash and he can _feel_ the energy crackling through her words.  Christ, Luke was an idiot for refusing to teach her, Snoke too for that matter.

     They start the next day.  

\--------------------------

     Rey likes things that are simple: an engine that purrs when you start it, a full belly and a warm bed, some coin in her pocket if she can manage it.  What she doesn't like is feeling confused and off balance.  Living beside Kylo Ren was… not what she expected.  

     It had made sense at the time.  The two of them had this bond, linked in some mystical way that kept pulling them together and showing them the parts of themselves that no one else was willing to accept.  They were both angry and scared and desperate.  When she said “let's give them the match” she didn’t have a plan.  She was just doing what she had always done; get through today and let tomorrow’s problems wait for tomorrow.     

     Somehow they weren’t shot by the rebels escaping.  Somehow they weren’t recognized the instant they touched down and tried to trade their stolen ship for a new one.  Somehow the days had turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, and they were still alive and flying.

     They fell into a pattern; working on the ship, joking about silly things, hiding from the authorities and trying to make it to the next port.  Kylo was useless when it came to bartering and staying out of trouble on outer rim planets and he stuck out like a sore thumb on asteroid outposts, but he learned fast and was willing to work as hard as she did.  When he stepped aside and let her take the lead, even deferred her when she felt every bit as lost as him, it stirred something warm in her chest.

     The first time she met Kylo she wasn’t sure what he wanted more, her body or what was in her mind.  She was acting on blind instinct when she lashed back at him, pushing him out of her mind with pure panicked fury.  Then at least, things had been clear.  Now things were… not clear at all.  

     Rey assumed that once they were alone and not in imminent danger he would want her.  She figured that she was ok with it.  More than ok actually, if you went by the dreams she kept having.  Dreams that prominently featured soft lips and large hands holding her waist, pinning her to the bed.  On Jakku sex could be pleasant or useful, and sometimes it was both.  Rey had mostly ignored men all together, but there had been a few who caught her interest, and she had always been good enough with her bow to ensure that whatever happened was her choice.  Now she was living with the one man she couldn't just fight off if it came down to it - and still he always slept in the pilot’s seat or made a bed for himself in the engine room.  It was getting downright frustrating.

     Once they started meditation lessons she thought he would get with the program.

\---------------------------

     Teaching Rey was torture, pure and simple.  They sat side by side and as he explained the basic concepts; clear your mind, then when you are calm reach out, see with your mind not your eyes.  She caught on quickly.  No, it was Kylo who couldn’t clear his mind, how could _anyone_ be calm with Rey sitting so close that he could feel the energy shifting around her?

     They started out with mostly things that Luke had taught him but bits and pieces of Snoke’s advice worked their way in as well.

     “Feel yourself, see your anger and doubt.  Let your purpose burn the doubt to ash.”  He had no idea what he was doing anymore.  Not as a teacher, and not with the feelings that being so close to Rey day in and day out brought.

     He wanted her, he knew that much, he had wanted her since the first time he had laid eyes on her.  It had scared him, wanting something, wanting _someone_.  It was dangerous.  People used you, abandoned you, made you weak.  He had channeled that anger and lashed out at her when their paths first crossed, shown her exactly what kind of monster he was.  Now he would do anything to not be that man.  Did she see that?  Or was he just a useful tool to her?  Someone to teach her, someone to help fix the ship and watch her back off it?  

     She had disappeared for a couple of hours on their last stop, he had been frantic looking for her and trying to feel her through their bond.  Eventually she sauntered up with a smile and a bandage on her arm.

     “Found a woman who knew where to get an implant.”  His confusion must have shown on his face because she laughed, “You know, don’t get pregnant and all that.  Get a chip and you are good for a decade.  Barely even hurts.”  He was pretty sure that his cheeks matched the red on the blinking warning light that they still could not get to turn off in the cargo bay.

\----------------------------

     Rey though that she had been more than clear.  She had even spent the coin to get an implant.  Not that she particularly wanted to get pregnant anyway, _Christ_ she shuddered to think what a child with their genes would turn out like, but now he really had no excuse.  Eventually she decided to just take matters into her own hands.

     She waited until they were on a long jump and had a few days before their next touchdown.  They had gotten into the habit of practicing meditation and focus exercises after dinner.  She had the raw power but learning to control it, to lift a wrench and hold to rather than hurle it across the room, was harder.  The lesson had gone well tonight and Kylo was sitting cross-legged, leaning up against the wall, teasing her about how she really needed to learn to swim next time they found a planet with a lake… when she knelt down and straddled his lap.

     “I think you just want to see me naked.”  His eyes go very wide at her touch then flutter closed when she dips her head and presses their lips together.

\--------------------------

     Kissing Rey is like touching a live wire.  She is everywhere; tongue licking into his mouth, body pressing him into the wall, he can feel her breasts full against his chest.  It feels like letting water close over your head, everything is impossibly quiet and impossibly _real_ at the same time.  He moans and lets her take whatever she wants.  They kiss for what feels like an eternity, until he feels a sharp tug at the back of his head.  It takes him a second to realize that she she is pulling his hair, tipping his head back and grinning down at him.

     “Aren’t you going to carry me off to bed now?  Show me what all the first order ladies were so fond of?”  He’s certain his blush must give him away but instead she just laughs and drops another quick kiss on his lips.

\--------------------------

     Kissing Kylo was every bit as good as she had dreamed and he certainly seemed to agree a second ago.  Which was why she didn’t understand the half panicked look on his face now.  Surly he didn’t think that she cared who he had been with in the past?

     “Oh don’t worry, I’m sure you don’t kiss and tell.”  He looked ready to bolt and seeing as they had about 600 square feet to share between them that wasn’t really an option.  Maybe waiting until they had a week alone was not such a good idea.  She dips her head and kisses him again then pulls back when a new though hits her.

     “You do want this right?  I mean if you don't…”

     “NO!”  It comes out loud enough to almost frighten her then then quiets his voice.  “I mean, yes, I want…”  He’s looking everywhere except at her, “I wasn’t really… I’ve never done this before...”

     It takes her a solid minute to understand what he could possible mean.

     “You’ve never been with someone before?  How?”

     He shrugs miserably.  “I was busy training.  It wasn't exactly forbidden but... there weren't a lot of options… and Snoke…”  He sighs and struggles with the words.

\-----------------------

     It wasn’t that Snoke discouraged him from “earthly pleasures” the way that Jedi training did, it was more that there was always that whisper in the back of his mind.  “Can you trust them?  She doesn't see you, he just sees your power, they just want to use you.”  Contact of any kind, let alone physical intimacy, just seemed _unwise_.  “Everyone leaves you, but not me.  Never me.”  Sex and love and human contact were weakness he decided.  He was Darth Vader’s grandson, he was above all that.

     “I’m sorry.”  He had dreamed of this - of being with her.  He wanted to make it _so very good_ for her, to worship her, make her _arch_ with pleasure.

     “Come here.”  The tug on his hair is gentle this time.  Rey unfolds herself and stands up with the grace of a dancer, “come on.  I won’t bite… yet”  She smiles and pulls him across the room towards the bed.  When she reaches it she pushes the blankets to the side and sits, legs hanging over the side, then pulls her tunic over her head.  Her leggings are kicked to the side with the same quick efficiency.

     She is beautiful.  He already knew that of course.  He’s seen her dirt streaked and sweating, fighting for her life beside him, and laughing in triumph when a they get a particularly stubborn bit of gear to work.  Now she is golden.  All slim angles and soft curves.  He reaches a hand to her cheek, still not quite sure that he is allowed to touch but she nuzzles into the contact then turns and kisses his palm.  He brushes his hand down her cheek, across her throat, where he can feel her pulse start to gather speed, then cups her breast, feeling how her nipple begins to harden.  He leans forward and kisses at it, and encouraged by her moan of pleasure, nibbles his way across her chest to the other.

     He’s kneeling between her legs now and it’s the most obvious thing in the world to kiss a line down her stomach, across her navel, and then go even lower still.  It takes a bit, he’s clumsy and unsure of how to go about this, but her moans and soft gasps are a marvelous teacher.  Finally he slips two fingers into her, marveling at how wet and eager she is, and focuses his efforts on the nub of pleasure that makes her writhe on is hand.  Then she clenches hard around his fingers and arches off the bed.  

     “Good, want, sweet, yes”  He can hear her in his mind.  Words don’t usually bleed through between them but right now they are both beyond caring.  When she’s done she pushes his hand away and he pulls back unsure what to do now.

     “Too many clothes.”  She sounds amused.  He obediently pulls off his shirt and pants and lets her pull him into the bed.  They are stretched out on their sides pressing together, she claims his mouth then tangles their legs and begins grinding her hips against his erection.  It’s his turn to moan and arch forward.

     “Want you.”  He’s not sure which of them said it.  He’s not even sure that there are two of them any more.  He can feel her, and feel her feeling him, looping back and forth until there is only this, only pure sensation.  They roll together, now she’s straddling him and then she rises up far enough to position him between her legs and takes him in one fluid movement.  His hands find her waist and he thrusts up to meet her hips as they roll down.  They find their rhythm, pressing into each other faster and faster until she is biting his shoulder and clenching and his vision goes white for a moment as he comes.

     They lie there like that for long time until Rey rolls to the side and somehow manages to get the sheets untangled enough to pull over them.

     “Well all the other girls don’t know what they are missing.”  He can see her smile in the dim light.  “Too bad though, because I don't share.”  Her head is pillowed on his shoulder and he might have wondered if he was supposed to get up and give her her bed back but she seemed content to keep him there.  As long as she would have him there was nowhere else he would rather be.


End file.
